American Catholics & Politics

What stance should American Catholics assume toward politics in light of President Obama's contraception mandate? Is that stance reactionary?

Here on the Guild Review I have never really had an explicit agenda. The topics on which I write are sometimes quite random. What, for example, connects Goethe with Irish music? Nevertheless, there are certain concerns that color much of what I write here. Many of my posts over the last three or so years have been about how different individuals have come to terms with politics and the state. Hence my fascination with exile and persecution, the two situations when the individual is under the most pressure to figure out what sort of relation he can establish with the world of politics. For reasons I hope to make clear below, perhaps the best stance toward politics at the present time is that of the reactionary.

Recent events have given all American Catholics reason to reconsider their relation to the US political system. The HSS's new rule requiring Catholic employers to provide medical insurance coverage for contraceptives and abortifacients enraged this country's bishops, and President Obama's accommodation could not placate them either. The contraception mandate, then, would seem to mark the beginning of a Kulturkampf against Catholics in the US. Now any Catholic who takes the bishops' pronouncements seriously must ask himself: What stance am I to take toward a political system that has essentially declared war on my Church?

One option, of course, is simply to refuse to engage the culture at all and instead retreat into to political "quietism" or aestheticism. Just as the French quietists of the 17th century saw spiritual perfection in complete passivity, the political quietist seeks a complete Nirvana-like cessation of all desires to participate in political life. Moreover, just as the French quietists were condemned as heretics, political quietism is not a viable option for Catholics. The Church has always recognized that man is a social creature and that participation in the common good is essential for his fulfillment. Even contemplatives in monasteries do not withdraw from all worldly concerns; they must participate in the life of their community, which both shapes and is shaped by the world outside the cloister. A truly hermetic life is exceptional even among contemplatives.

On the other hand, there are many types of engagement with politics and culture, ranging from living in a Catholic ghetto or working within the system to civil disobedience and military resistance.

When Catholics first immigrated to the US in significant numbers, they were discriminated against by the Protestant establishment. Fortunately, though, they were generally allowed to live within their own ethnic communities as long as they did not become too ambitious. This gradually changed throughout the 20th century, as Catholics became more accepted by Americans but also became themselves more accepting of American culture.

Ever since John F. Kennedy's presidency, American Catholics have not generally perceived any serious conflict between the two parts of their identity. Working within the system has come to seem perfectly normal to most American Catholics. Indeed, most would agree with Mary Ann Glendon's interview "Politics as a Vocation" (h/t First Things). According to Glendon, Catholics in America are blessed to live in a country where we can actually influence politics through our vote, or other ways of "making our voices heard." Glendon, of course, is not oblivious to the need for politicians to make courageous decisions, but she generally thinks that participation in elections and the regular political process can still bear fruit.

There are times, though, when one group fails to achieve its goals through the normal political process. That is when the group will turn to civil disobedience. In our imagination, civil disobedience is a drastic step to be taken only when a group is suffering under intolerable tyranny. Yet civil disobedience also presupposes that the "tyrant" in question is reasonable enough not to slaughter civilians en masse. Not that violence is never a possibility, of course; but, it is vital that the state not kill too many protesters. Gandhi, for example, when he undertook his campaign of civil disobedience against the British Empire, knew that the British were too civilized to kill all of his followers.

Only when civil disobedience fails do most people even begin to consider military resistance. And yet, just like civil disobedience, military resistance is generally optimistic in its own way. One engages in military resistance only if one believes that violence can solve the immediate problem and restore a proper political order.

Each of these stances toward politics assumes that politics is a struggle; there is no way to avoid conflict. That is obvious. But, what is the smartest way to fight? What if none of these stances is effective in stopping or repealing Obama's birth control mandate? What if engaging with the political system as it currently is actually creates more problems in the long run than it solves? For instance, civil disobedience may not work, because it will be hard for protesters to goad the federal government into using just enough violence to gain the support of the masses, but not too much violence so as not to suffer considerable loss of human life. Moreover, mustering mass support for her position may entangle the Church in dubious alliances that she may later come to regret. And, to go one step further, even considering armed resistance against the US military is just ludicrous.

Does that mean that American Catholics should abandon the fight? No! There remains open to them another option: the reactionary stance toward politics. For the reactionary, neither civil disobedience nor military resistance is capable of restoring a sane political order. Early on, some reactionaries, most notably the French reactionaries in the Vendée, took up arms against the revolution. But, by now there is no hope of restoring the old order. Indeed, it is not clear what the best one could hope for in the current situation is. The name of "reactionary" is an unfortunate relic of an earlier age, but at least it does connect the modern reactionary to his spiritual forbears.

The modern reactionary can best be compared to an exile who knows he cannot undo his banishment, no matter how passionately he still cares for and loves the homeland that has rejected him. The reactionary may appear to have withdrawn from the contemporary world, but in reality, he has taken up an even fiercer battle on a higher plane: the reactionary's paramount concern is intellectual resistance. He looks on contemporary politics with nothing but disdain, but not out of apathy--though cynicism is certainly a temptation--but out of a concern to keep his soul unpolluted, so that he can devote himself to intellectual resistance.

Intellectual resistance is more demanding than military resistance. As the Colombian aphorist Nicolás Gómez Dávila said, "To think against is more difficult than to act against" (source). Armed resistance certainly requires courage, but the soldier has an immediate enemy who could destroy him at any moment, which helps him remain vigilant. Intellectual resistance, on the other hand, consists of transforming a culture, without the fear of death to spur us onward. Moreover, the reactionary does not wage an empty war of words in newspapers, on TV, or on blogs. It is a battle for souls. It is a war in which we must convert, ourselves first and then others.

For the reactionary, therefore, the fight against evil is itself a grace from God. (See Donoso Cortes for a classic expression of this attitude.) Connected to the reactionary's view of combat as grace is the realization that he is not guaranteed victory in history. The reactionary does not require the worldly triumph of the Church as a condition of his hope in Christ. Instead, he views history (in Tolkien's words) as a "long defeat". His calling is to be a witness to the eternal values present in history, even if being a witness requires becoming a martyr. For this the reactionary is often derided as a pessimist, but if he is a pessimist, he is a peculiarly hopeful type of pessimist.

A reactionary, then, does not consider all participation in politics futile, but understands its limits and admits how difficult it will be to restore first principles in society and politics. But, how does one live as an "internal exile" in one's country, hoping to save it yet knowing that's not really possible? And yet, one lives for the future. The reactionary sows seed that will sprout in the future, perhaps only in eternity.

Besides having to keep his hope alive, the greatest difficulty for a reactionary is that he is an exile, a lonely figure, cut off from politics. How can he reconcile his isolated existence--which he has freely chosen--with man's social and political nature? Life as a reactionary is not an ideal, just as life as an exile is not an ideal. But, no matter how much inward reserve he maintains, the reactionary must act within a community, even if it is only a few loved ones.

But, what does all this talk of the reactionary mean for Catholics in America right now? Soon after the official announcement of the mandate, Bill Donohue predicted there would be fighting in the streets. But, that won't happen. President Obama and his supporters are too smart to provoke an open uprising, and they do not want to give the pro-life movement anything comparable to Roe v. Wade to serve as a focus of discontent. They see that final victory is in sight, and so they are willing to let the pro-life movement linger for a while, because it is a more sure death. They know that if they keep up enough pressure, but do not get too heavy-handed, most people will knuckle under. In the original Kulturkampf, Bismarck threw Catholic bishops in jail and banned Jesuits from the country; Obama will not repeat those mistakes. He will not allow Archbishop Chaput or Archbishop Dolan to be compared to Bishop Matthias Eberhard, much less to Cardinal von Galen. No nuns will be carted off to the guillotine, like the martyrs of Compiègne.

American Catholics should by all means work within the ordinary political process and use civil disobedience to oppose President Obama's contraception mandate. But, there is no guarantee that American Catholics will enjoy any success. Indeed, after Catholics are forced to pay for contraception, it is nearly certain that the federal government will impose a requirement to pay for abortions; this will play out in the same way that Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close down after they refuse to place children in homosexual households. We Catholics will be exiles in our own country. The task of a reactionary Catholic, then, will be to figure out how to hand on the faith in an age of persecution, how to prepare an underground spiritual and intellectual resistance, to convert hearts and minds. We will need to wait and be patient. Above all, we will need to take Cardinal von Galen's words to heart: "Become hard! Remain firm!"

Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig is an author who is not very well known in America today. Indeed, he is rarely mentioned in discussions of 20th-century literature even in Germany or his native Austria. When his name does come up, it is usually only in connection with his more famous friends. Zweig had many literary friends, such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Yet, less than 100 years ago he was the most widely-translated author in the world. In his own day he was probably the most prominent writer to emerge from fin-de-siècle Vienna, though that honor now goes to another friend of his, Sigmund Freud.

Zweig wrote in a number of genres. As a youth, Zweig began publishing poetry in a Viennese paper with the encouragement of its editor, who became yet another famous friend of his: Theodor Herzl. He also published translations of French poetry, especially that of Baudelaire and Verhaeren. Later in his career, however, Zweig concentrated on prose. His prose style is still noteworthy for its clarity and its pleasant fluidity, though he is now dismissed by some critics (unjustly in my opinion) as a “pedestrian stylist.” His prose work consists mainly of plays, short stories, and novellas, as well as many biographies. Of these biographies, perhaps the best known, and certainly the one Zweig valued the most himself, was that of Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Erasmus was something of a patron saint for Zweig. Zweig shared certain characteristics with Erasmus that made his intellectual adoption of Erasmus fitting. Both men were born into turbulent times, indeed into events that were truly epoch-changing in modern history: Erasmus was the famous humanist, author of The Praise of Folly and editor of the Greek New Testament, who died in the midst of the Reformation. Zweig was born into the “golden age of bourgeois security,” which ended with the slaughter of the First World War. Both men, however, refused to take sides in those conflicts. Though Erasmus was widely known for being critical of the Church’s hierarchy, he did not lend his skill to Luther’s cause—but neither did he come out strongly against Luther. Zweig did not join either Austria, his homeland, or France, where he had spent some of his most formative years. Instead, he fled to Switzerland, where he spent the war protesting the carnage and pleading for peace. Zweig’s pacifism led him to enter self-imposed exile once again, twenty years later, after the Anschluss; he fled first to England, and then to Brazil when England joined the war against Hitler. Zweig, following what he saw as Erasmus’ example, stood by his principles, even though that meant standing alone, forgotten by the polemicists and belligerents on both sides.

Unfortunately, Zweig was overly conscious of standing alone, and so—in his autobiography, naturally enough—he set himself upon a pedestal, all alone in his single-minded pursuit of peace. The tone of Zweig’s autobiography (The World of Yesterday) is marred by this self-pity. It should not come as too great a surprise to the reader to find out that in 1942 Zweig (and his second wife) committed suicide.

Despite these flaws, what makes The World of Yesterday an interesting read is that, besides the wealth of historical detail, it gives a glimpse inside the mind of a member of the 20th-century literati who, confronted with the spectacle of the world falling down around his ears, had to wrestle with his most deeply-held prejudices. The inner turmoil evident in the narrative is heightened by two factors. First, the introductory chapter, in which Zweig describes the “golden age of bourgeois security” that developed under the guidance of the Habsburg monarchy, presents an idealized childhood that makes clear to the reader what Zweig will lose later. Second, Zweig had enough historical and philosophical learning to maintain some critical distance from his life and his prejudices—though not enough. The most important prejudice, inculcated in Zweig from his earliest days, was his belief in society’s inevitable material and moral progress.

Ultimately, though, Zweig was not able to overcome this prejudice. At the heart of The World of Yesterday is Zweig's gradual realization that progress is not inevitable. Indeed, after the childhood idyll of the golden age of bourgeois security, this realization begins to dawn in adolescence (to which Zweig devotes a chapter called Eros Matutinus), when Zweig deals with his own psychological problems and those of his classmates. The bloodshed of World War I, of course, shows Zweig that there were obstacles to peace. But even World War I did not spell the end of Zweig’s belief in perpetual progress; after the war, he became a firm believer in the League of Nations. At the same time, though, that he was advocating for international peace in the 1920s, Zweig was immersing himself more deeply in Freud’s psychology, which reinforced his adolescent experience of the fragility of man’s mind. It was only the outbreak of World War II, however, that seems to have shattered his comfortable belief in progress. Zweig apparently committed suicide in order to spare himself any further disillusionment.

In the end, then, Stefan Zweig, despite his achievements and his evident skill as a writer, remains a sad figure in a sad period of history: a victim of progress, and of his own prejudice.

Internal Exile: Cicero

A couple months ago, I wrote a post about “internal exile.” At the time I was busy preparing for finals, so I never followed up on that post with an example of internal exile. The other day, though, I read one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus in which he poses a series of questions that show exactly what kind of a dilemma a man of action faces when he contemplates going into exile, whether internal or external:

Should one stay in one’s country even if it is under totalitarian rule?

Is it justifiable to use any means to get rid of such rule, even if they endanger the whole fabric of the state? Secondly, do precautions have to be taken to prevent the liberator from becoming an autocrat himself?

If one’s country is being tyrannized, what are the arguments in favor of helping it by verbal means and when occasion arises, rather than by war?

Is it statesmanlike, when one’s country is under a tyranny, to retire to some other place and remain inactive there, or ought one to brave any danger in order to liberate it?

If one’s country is under a tyranny, is it right to proceed to its invasion and blockade?

Ought one, even if not approving of war as a means of abolishing tyranny, to join up with the right-minded party in the struggle against it?

Ought one in matters of patriotic concern to share the dangers of one’s benefactors and friends, even if their general policy seems to be unwise?

If one has done great services to one’s country, and because of them has received shameful and jealous treatment, should one nevertheless voluntarily endanger oneself for one’s country’s sake, or is it legitimate, eventually, to take some thought for oneself and one’s family, and to refrain from fighting against the people in power?”

(Cicero, ad Atticum, IX.4; March 12, 49 B.C.; tr. by Michael Grant)

It seems that Cicero never found satisfactory answers to these questions for himself. In the years leading up to his death, he alternated between writing philosophy at his various villas (this is the period when he composed the Tusculan Disputations and De Oficiis, among other works) and listening to the political news out of Rome, waiting for a chance to emerge from his self-imposed exile.

Even right up to his death he vacillated. When Antony rose to prominence, Cicero denounced him to the Senate in a series of speeches known to history as the Philippics. Antony, then, once he consolidated his power with Octavian and Lepidus in the Second Triumvirate, demanded Cicero’s death. Antony sent his thugs to kill him. At first Cicero chose to flee, but then changed his mind and remained at his villa at Astura. At the last minute he again decided to flee. But it was too late; Antony’s men caught up with him before he could reach the sea. In life Cicero often hesitated, but on his last day he met his death bravely, robbing Antony of any glory from his murder.

Internal Exile

In my last post (“Dante in Exile”) I discussed the crisis of identity provoked by exile. In that post I focused on exile in the strictest sense of the word: when a man is expelled from his native country for a political offense. Today, though, I want to discuss something to which Aaron alluded in his comment: internal exiles.
An internal exile is someone who is not forced to leave his country, but rather voluntarily withdraws from public life while remaining at home. There are many possible motives for such a retreat, but I think they can be reduced to three basic categories.

First, many an internal exile is no doubt driven primarily by fear. Lurking behind this fear, I suspect in many cases, is a complete disillusionment with public affairs. The internal exile begins his life intensely interested in public life, though he is perhaps a bit naïve. He has good ideals, but once he runs into resistance in his attempt to achieve those goals, he easily loses hope; he never learns the virtue of persistence. Not being humble enough to realize that he never could save the world, he gives the world up for lost. This first type of internal exile is essentially a quietist.

Second, some internal exiles are merely taking cover while they wait for the storm to blow over. They are much more reluctant than the first group to withdraw from public life. However, they ultimately decide that it would be more prudent to retreat for a while and do good later, rather than face near certain death now. If the pressure which forces them to withdraw from public life is like a storm, their position is that there’s no good to be gained from challenging the lightning to a duel. They foresee the end of the storm, and so they wait it out, trusting that they will be able to undo the damage. They gather their strength in exile, and are eager to put that strength to the test at the first opportunity.

Third, the rarest type of internal exile retreats from public life, but out of a pure affirmation of life. The prototype of this last exile, as Aaron suggested, is the hermit. Few are called to such a vocation, but for those who are solitude is the environment in which they come ever closer to the source of life. They devote themselves to contemplation, but they are also zealous in handing on the knowledge and love they acquire in contemplation (contemplata aliis tradere, as the Dominicans say). These exiles are the people to whom other exiles turn when they need the strength to persist, and that is the proof of their love for life.

The important thing about the second and third categories of internal exile, and what preserves them from the danger of quietism, is their love of life (which is perfectly compatible with asceticism). The impatient man of action who must wait to act, and the genuine contemplative—both renounce the world, but they do so in affirmation of the goodness with which God endowed it. I wish I could explain this more, but I’m already in over my head.

Photo credit: Albrecht Dürer’s 1495 painting, St. Jerome in the Wilderness

Dante in Exile

One image that has remained with me since those days long ago when I sat in LitTrad II is that of Dante as an exile. Dante ended up on the wrong side of the incessant disputes between the Ghibellines and the Guelphs in Florence. And, Dante never let you forget that he was on the right side all along, and that he was suffering in exile for it. Some critics, as a consequence, might simply dismiss Dante as petulant and vengeful, and would point to his penchant for placing his personal enemies in Hell as justification for their view.

This view, however, though not completely unreasonable, fails to do full justice to the experience of Dante’s exile. What is it, then, that makes exile such a uniquely harsh punishment?

Other forms of punishment can, of course, take a greater physical toll. An ordinary prisoner sits in his cell for a dozen years, all the while constantly abused by guards and fellow inmates. An exile, on the other hand, leads a free life in another country. Nor is exile harsh because the exile is forced to go to a place he does not particularly enjoy. Ovid, for example, did not enjoy being confined to a little village on the coast of the Black Sea, but at least he was not rotting in prison. It must be something more than physical pain or boredom.

What makes exile such a unique punishment, I would suggest, is the wound inflicted on one’s identify. Who inflicts this wound on the exile? His own native land inflicts it on him by rejecting him.

The legal distinction between expatriation and deportation might help clarify this idea of rejection. In legal terms, an expatriation is quite different from a deportation. When somebody is deported, the government declares merely that the deportee never even had a right to move into the country. In an expatriation, on the other hand, the government declares that one of its own citizens has committed such a horrible offense that he is now no longer worthy to remain a citizen. Moreover, the nature of the offense is different than an ordinary criminal offense. If the exile were a regular criminal, the government would just lock him up or execute him. But, the exile has almost always committed a political offense. Put a little less delicately, he pissed off the wrong person in power. And, that person has used his power to have the country reject him on the basis of his beliefs.

How does this rejection inflict such a grievous wound on an exile’s identity? To answer this, we have to look at a typical exile. The typical exile is an intelligent, public-spirited individual who has crossed a powerful politician, or an entire faction. Usually, he has done so quite visibly, and has probably made a fool of these politicians too. They are embarrassed and want revenge, so they turn public sentiment against him and ostracize him, before finally forcing him to flee the country. Such a person is aware of his position and his importance, and this self-consciousness is the source of his vulnerability.

What are the effects of exile on such a person? First, the exile is systematically excluded from public life in his native country. This cuts him off from his country’s living history. Before exile he saw himself as involved in shaping the land he loved; now that land hates him. Furthermore, he is physically cut off from his own native land; he loses contact with the places he loves most. Also, he is cut off from many of his family and friends. He is alone and without moral support in a strange land. Finally, he is often cut off from his own language. Even if he speaks the language of the country to which he has fled, the exile cannot easily explain to the people around him how he has been wronged. In summary, the exile is abandoned to fate.

Some of these effects can be clearly seen in Dante's Inferno. For instance, in Canto X (the Epicureans), the Tuscan dialect creates an instant bond between Dante and Farinata, one of his enemies. Not only does Dante show his love for his native tongue at the beginning of his dialogue with Farinata, he shows his desire to be on the right side of Florentine politics. When Farinata boasts of defeating Dante’s party, Dante is very quick to point out that the defeat was only temporary. All this in the middle of Hell! So strong is Dante’s constant concern with his exile that it preoccupies him throughout his journey through Hell. Interestingly enough, however, Dante is generally able to transcend these concerns later in Heaven with Beatrice. Dante makes far fewer complaints about exile in Heaven than he does in Hell. Dante’s experience of Heaven and Hell must have shown him how unimportant his political exile was in comparison to our utter helplessness when exiled from God. Once he allows himself to be purified in Purgatory and abandons himself to God’s mercy in Heaven, he seems capable of accepting his exile.

Exile, then, is a uniquely effective way to punish an outspoken individual for his beliefs because it affects the very identity of an individual who is already quite self-conscious and aware of his intelligence, influence, and ambition. It takes everything away from him, and he is helpless. The only way to overcome this helplessness is self-abandonment and abandonment to God.